June 16th, 2010 | 
This is a half a year old photo-shoot, but I would like to share the outcome here, the post is following this ONE. I was not able to release the details of the shot due to a restriction from a client, and now they seems to be OK with it 
Shirley Corriher the one of our most enjoyable customers. This time she showed us how to cook. The previous 4 days photoshot was only about the food, and now we did few portraits in the kitchen as well.
Food photography: Shirley O.Corriher cooking
The lighting setup:
Lighting setup for a kitchen portrait
As usual, only strobes were used, I still ignoring the ambient light:-) Lighting diagram above should be pretty self-explainable:
BD from the top (1), large strip box from the left (2) to soften shadows a little.
Hair light (3) through 20° snoot on the right behind, as I like it always to be the opposite side from the fill light (which is strip box, I believe . Large softbox (4) was used to highlight the kitchen where needed.
Shirley is amazingly easy person to work with: despite my curvy English we had very effective team work: she know exactly when to look at the camera, when to change a pose and when to wait for me while i adjust my stuff.
Now the biscuit.
Client wanted the image to be bright and soft, with warm colors. To make it bright, but still full in details (where it needed) I use several spot lights to highlight each object or group of objects individually. One of the photos:
Food photography for a newly created brand
Lighting setup for a food photography:
The lighting setup
Lights by numbers:
- This is not a light. This is the place where light is coming: Canon 1Ds Mark III.
- 10° spot to highlight the flowers.
- 10° snoot for a biscuit (top of it)
- Beauty dish, the largest lights source in the whole setup.
- 20° spot to highlight glasses with juice.
- Strip box for the background.
- 10° spot for a biscuit, to enhance the texture of the bread.
Sorry, no light ratio information: I still use my eyes to get what I want
Equipment and shooting spec:
Camera gear:
- Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III DSLR
- Bogen 055 XPROB Tripod with 405 geared head
- Canon RS-80N3 Remote Switch
- Canon Right Angle Finder
- Canon 24-70mm f2.8 L lens
Lighting and light modifiers and accessories:
- Paul C. Buff Lighting: 2×1600WS, 2×800WS, 2×400WS
- 10° and 20° honeycomb grids mounted on standard Paul C. Buff reflector
- 1x 6”x36” strip box, unknown brand:-)
- LG4X 4 channel remote control for flash units
- CyberSync™ CST Trigger Transmitter and CyberSync™ AC Powered Trigger Receiver
- Manfrotto (Bogen) shooting table
All shots were done with: shutter speed 1/250 sec, F8-F10 depending of the DOF required, ISO 100, Custom WB 5900K
Thanks for reading, let me know if you have something to say:-)
P.S Yesterday I finished DIY battery pack, similar to Vagabond II form Paul C. Buff, and it works amazingly good! Working on the article and DIY video, so stay tuned!
